red rocket (w&d sean baker, w. chris bergoch)

There’s a downbeat charm to its characters and the storytelling of Red Rocket. The set up of a former porn star who arrives back in Texas on the east coast of the USA, fleeing the west coast, battered and bruised, is a terrific way of showing the other side of the country, the rundown clapboard houses that look like they could fall over in the next hurricane, set against the backdrop of a refinery which is far from the most environmentally friendly place in the world to live. The late Brenda Deiss as Lil, Mikey’s mother-in-law, gives one of the most convincing performances of what might be called a ‘real’ person you are ever likely to see. This is a long way from Hollywood, in every sense. The editing and cinematography are great, with Baker composing his narrative using big set piece scenes but also a wealth of tiny, fragmented scenes which help to build up the sense of time passing in a concrete world.

At the film’s heart is Mikey, a character who appears at first to be a likeable dork, akin to a Paul Newman character in, say, Cool Hand Luke. An alt-American, with the swagger and charm and none of the guile. However, as the film goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that Mikey is far more than a dork. The storyline begins to revolve around him grooming the precocious seventeen year old, Strawberry, to become a porn star. A mission he is wholeheartedly committed to, with not the slightest moral compunction. I don’t know if it’s the directors intention to confuse the fuck out of us, but it became harder and harder to square the likeable dork with the pimp. Sure, he gets his comeuppance, but on another level it felt as though the film was still rooting for him. He is, in so many ways, Dirk Diggler’s elder brother, but his very charm becomes problematic as his seduction of Strawberry becomes the central thrust of the second half of Red Rocket’s narrative. Not everyone I have spoken to about this agrees with me, but the film left me feeling as though it wanted to have its strawberry cake and eat it.